As we worked on this issue, it occurred to me that the HVAC industry’s quest for efficiency will be impacted by the very recent implementation of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules to regulate hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) boilers and process heaters (http://bit.ly/MjrSrcRules).

These rules have been in the works for a very long time and they impact the type of fuels used in ICI boilers.

Now the issue is how will facilities comply with these rules? The answers are many and the opportunities for engineers legion. As is the case with any controversial legislation, there has been a lot written about how the Boiler MACT rules, as they were originally written, will hurt the jobs market and have all kinds of negative impacts on the industry and our clients.

For example, in 2011, Reuters carried a story about how the House of Representatives wanted to delay pollution rules on boilers (http://bit.ly/bmact_delay), saying, “House Republicans and the business community have launched a campaign to delay the EPA’s raft of air pollution rules on everything from mercury to greenhouse gases, saying they destroy jobs and add costs to companies struggling to recover.”

Since then, the rules have been updated and changed by the EPA to make them more acceptable to both politicians and the business community.

In fact, ABMA President and Chief Executive Officer W. Randall Rawson says on the Website that the final Industrial Boiler MACT rules represent a dramatic swing away from earlier more rigid rules and embrace the basic differences between boiler types, boiler fuels, and their respective applications. This is a good thing.

On its Website (http://bit.ly/ABMA_ICI), the ABMA says the investment needed to comply with the final rules “will depend on the age and condition of each boiler room to which the new rules may apply and to what extent they may apply.

“The numerical limits that do apply to boilers are completely achievable in most conditions and, when applied to boiler-room-specific situations, will be far more affordable than detractors maintain.”

The ABMA statement continues: “There is identifiable work to be done to clean toxics out of the industrial setting, and these rules go about mandating that work in the least offensive and least disruptive way and will result in job creation in compliance-related industries—an economic and health-based win/win.”

In fact, a number of websites are already offering compliance services. Check out the following examples:

So where do you stand on the Boiler MACT rules and their impact on your companies and your customers? We’d love to hear from you and learn how you are/will be addressing this with clients. What opportunities do you see? Drop me a line at mike.weil@penton.com or use the discussion area immediately below this article to leeave me comments.

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